TA/ENG 127!Contemporary Theatre!

April 28, 2011!

Queer Theatre!&!

Angels in America!

Stonewall Inn Riots!

(June 28, 1969)!

“That one particular night in the one particular place. . . Everyone in the crowd felt that we were never going to go back. It was like the last straw.”

Gay Liberation Front!

“Do You Think Homosexuals Are Revolting? You Bet Your

Sweet Ass We Are!”!!

ACT UP!(AIDS Coalition To !

Unleash Power)!

(1969)

(1987)

1981 - !First Reported by CDC!! !(Kaposi’s Sarcoma, GRID)!

!1987 - !Ronald Reagan speech on AIDS!!2009 - !25 million dead!

! !33 million living with HIV/AIDS!!

!

AIDS!(Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome)!

Early 1990s ! Queer Theory!➭

Mid-1980s ! Gay and Lesbian Studies!

Queer Theory!

➭

Mid-1970s !Feminist Studies/Theory!

Feminist Theory!

•  First Wave (pre-1960s) - awareness of women’s issues and a fight for basic rights.!

!•  Second Wave (1960s) - fight for equality.

Women’s Liberation movement!!•  Third Wave (post-1975) - focus on

differences and larger forms of domination: “essentialism”!

•  LIBERAL - equal rights.!!•  CULTURAL - theory of difference: !

! ! Feminist vs. Patriarchal!!•  MATERIAL - social construction of gender.!

Feminist Theory!

? ?

Essences! - Things that are un-changeable!vs.!

Essentialism!

Selfhood - Is a social construction!

Constructiveness!

SEX vs. GENDER

Value Judgement “Normal” and “Deviant”

Queer Theory!

NORMATIVE ������

DEVIANT

says!all these

categories are social

constructs; changeable!

Queer Theory!

Angels in America A Gay Fantasia on National Themes

Paul Klee, Angelus Novus” (1920) Tony Kushner (b. 1956)